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Golf balls: A cold-weather solution?

Thursday, October 13, 2011 Comments

The summer behind us, cooler weather is ahead of us, raising an old familiar question: How does cold weather affect the performance of the golf ball?

Frank Thomas, former USGA technical director, has the answer in his book, "Dear Frank: Answers to 100 of Your Golf Equipment Questions." Generally, he wrote, for every 10 degrees drop in temperature you will lose from 2 to 2 1/2 yards.

"So, at 40 degrees, the ball will travel about 10 to 12 1/2 yards less than at 90 degrees," Thomas wrote.

The next question, then, can a golf ball be manufactured to counter the effects of cold? One company says it can.

ColdFusion Golf, located in Cary, N.C., has what it calls "the cold weather golf ball solution," a ball designed specifically to function better than others in cold weather, defined by the company as "below 60 degrees."

"I was out playing with a friend three years ago and the ball was sitting in the cart, it was maybe mid-40s, near Pinehurst," Curtis Colvin, the developer of the ColdFusion ball said. "So I pull the ball out of the cart, hit it and I was short. I thought, 'what the heck? Maybe it was me.' I hit another and I was short again."

Colvin contemplated solutions: "A ladies' ball? A low-compression ball?" he said. Instead, after his research showed him that no one else was doing so, he decided to manufacturer his own cold-weather ball.

He worked with a company in Taiwan with expertise in manufacturing custom golf balls, he said. Through trial and error, he decided on a 70-compression ball with a larger core.

"It's a lousy two-piece ball when it's warm," he said. "But freeze it and it comes alive. It was meant to be something easy for golfers not to have to think about. It does work."

The ColdFusion balls sell for $24 a dozen.

-- John Strege

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Prazza: Tough to lose these golf balls

Monday, September 12, 2011 Comments

A golf ball that goes missing is an irritant, no doubt, but do we want to do away with it without improving our swings as a hedge against losing it in the first place? One company is betting that enough people will.

Prazza is a Netherlands-based company that has developed the Prazza ball with microchips and a Prazza Golf Ball Finder that allows the user to home in on a ball that has gone into hiding. The Golf Ball Finder is about the size of a smart phone and uses active radio-frequency identification to locate the Prazza ball from up to 110 yards away. The company claims it has the ability to locate the lost pellet in U.S. Open rough or in water up to eight inches deep.

The company's sales pitch is that "most golfers lose four balls per round," and that a five-minute search for each of them adds 20 minutes to a round. We can't vouch for the four lost balls a round, but when Callaway Golf first entered the golf ball business with its Rule 35 ball, it offered a five-pack based on research that said the average golfer uses 4.5 balls per round.

The big question is how well the Prazza balls perform. "Prazza golf balls are high-performance distance golf balls with excellent spin control," the company website says.

The Prazza Golf Ball Finder can be purchased here for $299.95 and includes two Prazza balls. A sleeve of three balls can be purchased separately for $39.95.

-- John Strege

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Polara: The most defiant ball in golf

Thursday, May 12, 2011 Comments

Twenty years ago, the renowned cartoonist Johnny Hart (B.C., Wizard of Id) penned a B.C. strip in which a cavewoman known as the Cute Broad is playing golf with the caveman Peter.

"Let me get this straight," the Cute Broad says. "The less I hit the ball the better I'm doing."

"That's right," Peter replies.

"Then why do it at all?" the Cute Broad asks.

This comic strip came to mind in the wake of the stories this week about the re-emergence of the Polara golf ball, designed via its asymmetrical dimple pattern to self-correct when it is oriented properly. By placing the ball with its side-stamp arrow pointing toward the target, the ball won't hook or slice nearly to the degree that other balls would.

Of course the ball does not conform to USGA rules, which stipulate that "the ball must not be designed, manufactured or intentionally modified to have properties which differ from those of a spherically symmetrical ball." The symmetry rule was added in 1981 in direct response to the original Polara, which was introduced in 1977 and eventually ruled by the USGA to be illegal for tournament play. The company sued the USGA, which eventually agreed to pay a settlement of $1.4 million.

Aero-X Golf, the company that now owns the rights to the Polara, has re-introduced the ball with newer technology and without regard for the rules. "Polara golf balls are designed for recreational golfers that want to take advantage of technology improvements designed to help golfers enjoy the game more," a news release states.

So what does the USGA have to say about it?

"You know the easiest way to get the ball in the middle of the fairway?" Dick Rugge, senior technical director of the USGA, told the New York Times. "Walk down there and place it with your hand. Who are you kidding?"

The Cute Broad couldn't have said it better herself.

-- John Strege

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